The Story Behind Being Drugless?

In the style of Ben Goldacre, Dr Bob, or to give his full medical title, 'Bob' has been the subject of one of my latest articles. It turns out that the good 'doctor' got his qualifications from the National University of Health Science and Clayton College, in Chiropractic and Natural Health respectively. For some reason, he thinks that with these non-medical 'qualifications' he is authorised to give out medical advice. When confronted about his lack of credentials and asked if he thinks it is ethical to give out medical advice, he deleted my public comments. Whilst doing my research on Bob for my article, I checked out his website. Quite frankly, I was shocked and appalled at what I saw in the one video I clicked on.

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Before I start, I would like to say that I have taken nothing in this article out of context. The video named, 'The Story Behind Drugless' (which you can watch in 3D!!!!), starts with Bob saying, "Hello my name is Dr Bob DeMaria the drugless doctor. Today we are going to talk about why I became drugless. I have been practising for nearly 30 years". This is a very strange thing for a chiropractor/natural health-er to say, since I was unaware they had the power to prescribe drugs. To me it seems like the beginning of this video has been constructed to fool the viewer into thinking that Bob is a medical doctor and that he has been 'practising' medicine for that time.

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We then flash to Bob's terrifying wife, who has no problem telling us about going to see her gynaecologist and the problems she has had with her lady parts. It's hard to explain why I think she is so terrifying, but trust me, after you watch the video you will know exactly what I am talking about. She tells us that she was diagnosed with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN, or abnormal growth of squamous cells on the surface of the cervix) and was offered drugs by real doctors. She says, "I was not going to take drugs!", as if they were offering her crack cocaine and claims that a change in diet and behaviour cured her CIN. She failed to mentioned that in most cases CIN can be eliminated by the host's immune system without need for medication.

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We then flash back to Bob who says, “People today have been manipulated, by the media and by the manufacturers of food and the medical institutions, to take a medication literally for everything.” Looking past the paranoia, he may have a point regarding Americans being over-medicated; I have to admit, after working with children in America, I believe that they do have a tendency to over-medicate certain conditions (I feel I have to give a bit of a disclaimer here: I have no medical background and I am very aware that I could be 100% incorrect). However, it becomes very clear soon after making this point that Bob isn’t just talking about things like medication for ADHD, as he tries to convince people taking medicine for blood pressure to stop using it, and for people with diabetes to reduce the amount of insulin they take.

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Bob then shows us how little he knows about medicine, by staying that “one medication has ten bad effects”. He’s not talking about a specific drug here, he is stating that all meds have a guaranteed ten side effects (or ‘bad’ effects as Bob calls them, because he believes there are no good side effects). To everyone reading this, it’s obvious that not every pill is going to have ten side effects; some may have more and some may have less. Some meds may even have positive side effects, as is the case with Gabapentin; it’s used for the treatment of seizures but its side effects are useful in treating bipolar disorder, hot flushes, migraine and restless leg syndrome, to name a few.

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Bob then takes it one step further, by saying that all side effects grow exponentially with every drug you take: “One medication has ten bad effects. If you take two meds – now listen to me now – it’s exponentially increased to a hundred. Take three it goes to a thousand. Then ten thousand. A hundred thousand, A million, ten million. If you’re taking nine medications a day – and I have had patients take as many as twenty three medications a day when they came into our office – that’s a billion inter-reactions that we don’t even know what’s going on.”

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Let’s look past him accidentally swearing at everyone in the UK for a second, and how stupid and badly worded the statement was; it should be mentioned that it is also mathematically incorrect. If someone was taking 23 meds a day, with Bob’s exponential growth there would be 1×10 23 side-effects not 1×10 9. That’s an error of 100,000,000,000,000 magnitude. Again not every pill, jab, cream, etc is going to react in the same way. Some may have more negative side effects when used in conjunction with one another and some may be used together without any extra side effects.

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Bob then begins to talk about diabetes. He claims that 95% of all diabetes is “directly related to their lifestyle” and that it can be managed by exercising and eliminating carbs alone. Bob seems unaware that there are two very different types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes develops when the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the cells that produce insulin. As a result, the body is unable to produce insulin. Type 2 develops when the body does not produce enough insulin to maintain a normal blood glucose level, or the body us unable to used the insulin that is being produced. Both are different and should be treated differently on a patient to patient basis. By not making a distinction between the two, suggesting that the majority of both are caused by lifestyle choices and that both can be maintained with exercise and eliminating carbs alone, Bob has shown how little he knows on the subject. To anyone reading this with diabetes and contemplating using Bobs advice, you should not underestimate the potential dangers of mismanaging your condition. By coming off your medication (as promoted by Bob) you run the risk of going into a coma, possible amputation(s) and death.

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I found myself cringing when Bob was talking about family members with erection problems, but the worst part of this video is when he brings up the death of his own parents. He says that their Alzheimer’s and dementia could have been helped with ‘drug free living’ but they refused to listen to him. Although there are no known cures for Alzheimer’s or dementia, there are meds that give people a better quality of life as their condition continues to deteriorate. I find it unbelievable that someone is using the death of his own parents to promote his bizarre and potentially harmful views on medical health, without any medical or scientific evidence to back them up.

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I would like to end with a quote from Bob that shows his level of medical knowledge. It’s a quote that shows that he is not one to be trusted on any medical matter. It’s a quote that any one who has ever taken penicillin in the past knows is utter bullshit: “Medications don’t cure anything. Medications manage symptoms.”

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My name is Myles Power, and I run the educational YouTube channel, powerm1985. I spend what little free time I have sharing my love of SCIENCE! through home experiments, visiting sites of scientific interest, and angrily ranting at pseudoscience proponents. I am also one of the founding members of the podcast 'The League of Nerds' - which I co-host with James from 'The History of Infection'.

I’m sorry. I really tried but after the scary wife and a second repetition of “I’ve been pwacticing for 30 years” the dwugwess ‘doctor’ was making me feel ill. I’m so tired of chiropratts giving advice on things they are not qualified to and clearly know nothing about, just to make a buck at the expense of peoples health. I not only treat cancer patients (with evil conventional, clinically proven to be effective, medical practices) but had CIN myself, so know the level of bullshit being peddled here. I have had to treat women as young as 21 palliatively for advanced/terminal cervical cancer in excruciatingly pain from bone mets and watch them leave small children behind, because they weren’t as fortunate as scary wife to have had the disease detected early. Grrrrrrrrr!

I don’t know if it’s just me or if everybody else encountering problems with your site.
It appears as though some of the written text on your posts are running off the screen. Can somebody else please comment and let me know if this is
happening to them too? This might be a issue with my internet browser because
I’ve had this happen before. Many thanks

I feel I need to comment.
I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease about 10 years ago. At the same time, I had recently been told (after an MRI scan) that my back problems were due to 5 prolapsed discs in my lumbar (lower back) and 2 in my cervical (neck). Surgery was not an option – for either problems – as I had young children to raise by myself, so with the advice of doctors I was taking medication. Steroids, anti-inflammatories and painkillers… on top of high doses of iron as I was severely anaemic. The result = stomach tumours, osteomalacia (adult rickets), scurvy (vitamin C deficiency), TB, Osteoporosis… There’s more but I think I’ve mentioned enough. There are major side-effects of taking “drugs” and the alternative isn’t profitable for the medical profession. Now I’m drug free and still intact (no surgery) but that’s no thanks to the medical profession… but lots of research. A medical doctor is exactly what his title states: Medical = medicine (drugs). His/her training is based on the study of medication, not the anatomy and physiology and most certainly not a patients health but their own wealth.

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